The continued affair with phones.

1976. Behind the Cordite factory community Hall stage, there's a green room. That green room had a big black telephone back then. After a particular performance on stage that I wasn't involved in, my father was, I found myself beside that phone with no one beside me. Pushing aside all the stage clothes, make up boxes and a suspicious looking whip, I sat beside that phone. Picked it up. The receiver. Heard the dial tone. Put the receiver back. A thrill went through my like current passing. Quick survey to see if anyone was around, I again got back to the phone. Picked up the receiver. I knew that I had to move the dial from every number to the steel pin on the anticlockwise left. I tried that for one time with a three digit number. Guess what was the number. Consider me to be as much a pulp film or comic or book fanatic. You guessed? It was 100. Then I kept the receiver back in the cradle immediately. Because I thought someone had picked it up at the other end. I had not thought of an answer if someone did oick up. So, I thought of plausible answers to say if people really picked up. What would a nine year old come up with? Uncle, is my father there? Uncle, are you Anantharaj's father? Hello, is it the hospital? I had the capacity to understand that the homes had no phones except the higher level officers. So, many like us did not have access to this instrument. The public service places had phones. I naturally, thought of a hospital. You'd think I then furiously dialled up all the possible numbers and troubled the entire town. No, wrong. I randomly rang three numbers and then because the tone was like improper Morse code, I just kept the phone back. Then I sat there weaving stories around it. Immersed myself in a Hardy boys story. Then a Famous Five mystery. And kept using the phone. In my Imagination. I didn't actually pick up the receiver. It was a thrilling evening for me. Sitting and conceiving things beside that phone. Now, we desolate souls still sit beside phones, look at the screen and imagine things. Job offers, mails from interested parties, love messages, messages from kids or even long lost friends. We still conceive, conjure and vacillate. We are so happy when things actually happen on the phone. The ding of that message. The tick of that mail. We are still the same imaginative but lonely souls. "Khaali haath aaye the hum..khaali haath jaayenge"